Latest / Dits & Dahs / the seeds of lack
Transcript
- Sue: This is the beginning of the gardening year for me. I'm lucky in that I have a garden patch at the side of the house. It's probably 10 by 30 feet and has over the years gained plants in it that have either perennial or are self-seeding. The last couple of years have been difficult for me to garden as I was processing through my husband's death who died four years ago. When you become a single homeowner, There are other duties that get prioritized as you're only one person to get them done. And gardening was lowered in its priority, which had a knock on effect given that I then didn't have much food to supplement my staple diet of rice and beans. So gardening is not the cheapest way to get your food, but by goodness sakes, it's the best quality and flavor and get to grow whatever I choose, not what's available on special at the grocery store. So this year, I have decided to, as I've been with my spiritual life and my food cutting costs, to become more frugal, dive into the stash of the oldest seeds I have and start germinating them so that I have a couple of weeks, or a week anyway, to figure out if they are still viable. Last time I intentionally germinated seeds, was with the idea that I wanted to make my own hot sauce. Not a great amount of it. I mean, obviously you have to think about the scale of reasonably the space that I have to grow the amount of tomatoes, peppers, and spices, given the fact that I'll probably only get like one bottle. That said, that's my goal. So I'm replicating that goal this season. And because I'm speaking on it and you're listening, we'll make it so. It got me thinking. When I'm looking at the packets of seeds, ideally I'd love to be able to plant them all at once, but I don't have the acreage to do that. I have a, as I say, just a good size home garden patch and a couple of hydroponic gardens, that's where I'm germinating, that have a limitation on their indoor size for growth. But I have all this seed, but it's the sign of reminding yourself that how much abundance you have and that while you can look at it and... say, yeah, I've got this, I'll be ready to go. Yeah, you've got abundance, but you know, until you actually put forth the effort of turning those seeds into veg and fruit producing plants, it's not an abundance that you can make use of. And in fact, it turns it into sort of a need or lack because of the inaction on your part. And that's for me, the sign that my life is returning to a more normal tempo of activities that were shared by my late husband and myself. The other thing is that the garden, because we all choose to grow unique to us flavors in the plants that we grow, they become tradable with the other neighbors. And so then the food does have sort of a break even value given that other people can benefit. And it's a commitment to self, of course, all of the commitments that you make to. Just having delicious food to eat or beautiful flowers to enjoy, that's abundance. But looking at the seeds not being germinated because nobody's putting the effort into gardening is a position of lack. So to be in my position at the moment of no longer being in lack in terms of my gardening and being abundance is a very... positive affirmation. You know, not only does life go on, it's a new life that seems similar to the past. So it's very comfortable. But at the same token, there's a lot more self-love. You know, I'd rather pay more to eat the food that I grow than to be so heavily dependent on the food distribution systems. commercially speaking. So as I'm restarting my gardening, I'm also diving through my pantry and committing to emptying the pantry of all the food that I've already purchased and not used. Again, on appearance, having a full pantry, full freezer and refrigerator of food is a sign of abundance, but unless it's used for that purpose, it's lack. I am of the mindset. that it's great to have certain amount of time of shelf life stable foods on hand, should there be any reason to dive into them. Could be completely out of your control. You could be in a situation where you lost power and didn't have a way to generate power and situate the event might last a couple of weeks. So I store enough to get through a very long period of time. And it was automatically doubled at the time of my husband's death. And there's also the... necessary for some of those food items to cycle them out. So going through the pantry and eating some of those items are in the emergency just helps keep that stash as fresh as possible. Because there's nothing worse than you're in a place where you that's all you have a choice to eat and then it tastes stale. You'll eat it, but it's a real psychologically depleting lack producing event. You went to all that effort of selecting good items and then didn't cycle them out after a reasonable period of time of storage and then have to plunge into it at a time when you can't get anything else. And then, oh, that's disappointing. I think regardless of where you live, having access to an immediate stash of emergency rations that, first of all, you have to enjoy eating and B, are going to actually be shelf life stable for a few years is important. And if at the very least have the equivalent cash in an account to access to buy smaller portions of it when you need to. But, I think mostly about the fact that there could easily come a time when it's difficult for the supermarket trucks to fuel and not trying to make people paranoid. But the idea here is that when something is mundane as losing access to fuel for vehicles based on petroleum starts happening, well, not only will you have nowhere to drive to and get a refill temporarily, but neither will the grocery store trucks and some of the trains will stop running as well. My thing is having at least a month immediately available of not only me, but Rita's food as well. And that by keeping the amount of food in the refrigerator and the freezer down to a minimum, We're not only eating the freshest quality, but not wasting food should there be a power interruption where my generator can't overcome it. During Hurricane Sandy, the year before our generator was set up, the power was out at our home for 10 or 12 days. And that meant that the generator supply for the Broadband transmitters, phone, cell phone towers, etc. All of that data communication was then reliant on generators that only stored 96 hours of fuel. Well, I just said it was 10 days. So at some point, it won't matter how much fuel you have on hand when some of the utilities run out of their ability to communicate data because of their backup systems not having fuel. Again, it's not about being paranoid, but... understanding that something is innocuous as a weather event that takes you offline in every communication level that you have in your life for a week or two weeks, and then not being able to access your cash because everything's a digital connection. It's kind of why I get into the rant today, if you want to call it that, to raise your awareness that having a couple weeks on hand, food, supplies, and thinking through all of that, which powers your life, is about being aware and preparing and understanding that, you know, not carrying cash probably going to be detrimental to some degree and that at least having a sense of a plan B to keep your life running smoothly. Cause I mean, in the end, that's all that we're trying to do. We're just trying to have a nice time doing what we love to do each and every day without interruption. So if you can't get your good stuff because there's no power to make your favorite morning breakfast. Life is going to change psychologically very quickly in a negative way. I truly am not trying to be an alarmist. I think one of the reconciliations of your mind, body, and spirit is to know that you can say that you are abundant by having, in a specific case, a pantry or storage of food. You can say you're abundant because you have the potential of growing an abundance of food in the seeds that you keep. But your actions are key. For me as a gardener, The seeds, the pantry, and the action I take to make those things function really help provide. a normal existence when things go off grid, as best I'm able. I think one of the things that's helpful when you come to self and turn within and deal with your spiritual side is to have an understanding of the basics that keep your physical body alive every day. Knowing where your food comes from, knowing how to get it, knowing what you need to generate to make that happen, that's just as important as loving yourself. Because most of us have to eat every day. Some don't get the opportunity to do so given their life circumstances. But for those of us who have the privilege of having regular meals, expressing gratitude for actually being able to understand where it comes from, for me, is a great leveler in terms of creating balance in my life. This is just Sunday morning ramblings. And if you found a resonance with it, I am very grateful. Thanks for listening. you